


the world was made to be seen by your eyes

by antarcticas



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, F/M, Falling In Love, Love, Love Confessions, Miscommunication, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck, Zutara, there was no war, who doesn't understand love at all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:14:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24838249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antarcticas/pseuds/antarcticas
Summary: “No, no, no. Of course I want to be with you. I just . . . I’m a mess, Katara. I can’t do anything right. When I’m emotional I destroy things and when I’m not I’m never enough. I’m barely a decent Fire Lord and I’ve done so many terrible things. I don’t know whyyouwant to be withme.”Katara realizes Zuko doesn't understand love. She explains it to him.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 17
Kudos: 266





	the world was made to be seen by your eyes

Katara is pretty sure that Zuko loves her.

They’ve been dating for a while. She’s certain he’s about to propose marriage to her — he’s hiding something in his closet, she knows. She crawls into bed with him every night. He holds her when she’s sad and he lets her kiss him when he’s mad. 

She loves him. She’d told him it, too — and he’d just stumbled over some kind of response and pulled her into his chest and said  _ no, no, no _ . It had stung her a bit to realize that he hadn’t felt the same at first but as she’d curled into his warmth she’d had another startling realization.

_ Zuko doesn’t know love. _

* * *

  
  


She knows about his family.

She knows he loved his mother but his psychopathic father had banished her for no reason years ago, and he’s lost hope about finding her. His relationship with his father was more about hatred than love; the same with his sister. She isn’t that big on psychoanalysis but one thought runs through her mind — perhaps Zuko doesn’t truly understand love.

He was exiled and burned and destroyed by the man rotting in that prison cell who claimed to love him. 

Zuko treats her so delicately, almost like he’s afraid she’ll break or run away from him. She knows, abstractly, that he’s rather passive with her; but then she thinks about just how much he’s willing to let her get away with.

She’d wanted to rewrite the Fire Nation’s past hundred years of history objectively, and he’d calmly let her. She’d cried that she missed her family when she was bleeding and he’d gotten Sokka to her the next week. She’d hated his court fashions and he’d let her do whatever she willed, refusing to listen to what the nobles of his court thought of her. She doesn’t even train with him anymore because he holds back and she’s certain he lets her win.

As they lay in bed, his heated form against her own, sleeping in the moonlight, she looks up at his chin with a frown on her face. He won’t tell her he loves her but she’s sure he does. She’s sure that he doesn’t believe she loves him because he knows love to be destruction.

* * *

  
  


“Zuko,” she ventures into the silence, “do you love me?”

She’s sure that he won’t be mad at her for ending their meditation session early. He’s never mad at her. So he opens his eyes with the rough edge that she knows means that he’s internalizing his feelings and breathes out calmly. “I . . . I care a lot for you. You know that.”

“Yeah, I do,” she crawls closer to him and puts her head against his shoulder. He easily slides his arm around her and lets her finish. “But love is different.”

“Love is . . .” he chokes like he doesn’t want to continue, but she stares at him with her eyes wide. “Love is terrible, Katara. You don’t want me to love you. My father said he loved my mother and he destroyed her. He said he loved me and you know how he treated me.”

“Zuko. You’re not your father.”

He turns her around in his lap, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “I’m not. But he’s a part of me. Loving him destroyed so many people. It’s not . . . it’s not worth it.”

“What does that mean?” she nudges. “Do you . . . do you not want to be with me?”

“No, no, no. Of course I want to be with you. I just . . . I’m a mess, Katara. I can’t do anything right. When I’m emotional I destroy things and when I’m not I’m never enough. I’m barely a decent Fire Lord and I’ve done so many terrible things. I don’t know why  _ you  _ want to be with _me_.”

His temperature decreases and she sighs and looks up to meet his eyes. “Love is good, Zuko. I’m with you because I love you,” she reaches a hand out and strokes his scarred cheek. 

His expression is large and forlorn and it breaks her. “You really shouldn’t.”

“Zuko,” she grasps his hands. The courtyard sounds so, so empty. “I love you so much. I . . . I love the way you hold me, I love . . . I love how you always listen to the people around you. I love how you’re so protective and how you always do your best to be a good leader. I love talking to you and being around you and sleeping with you I . . .”

He’s frozen. “Katara . . .”

“I’m sorry,” she sighs. “I know you don’t want to hear it but I — I want you to know what love really is. Zuko,” she reaches up to his face, “how do you feel about me?”

He’s looking at her like she is the sun, the stars, and everything else in between; he tells her this. “You’re my world, Katara. I feel like I can see everything in you, the future. You make me learn from my past instead of forget it. I . . . I  _ feel  _ everything you do,” he reaches for her hand again and places it on his beating heart and she can feel the  _ thump thump thump —  _ “all I want is your happiness. I would do anything for you.”

She just gives him a bright smile. “Would you ever hurt me?”

“Of course not! You’re the last person I would ever hurt,” he shakes before his eyes widen. “Wait — is this about before? You know that I’m not that person anymore — I understand if you’d hate me for that but I swear, I’ve changed — I would do literally anything for you, I swear —”

She interrupts to accelerate his heart rate one more time. “Would you let me leave?”

The hand she has on him can feel the spike in his energy as he chokes, flames reflected in his eyes. “Leave me — Katara, please don’t leave me —”

She tries to convey her meaning. “It’s just a question, Zuko.”

He takes in a deep breath. “If you truly wanted to I couldn’t stop you. I . . . I want you to do what’s best for you, even if that’s —  _ evenifthatswithoutme —” _

She feels a little bad about slightly giggling at his worried face and reaches a hand out to smooth over his jawline. “Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere. But — Zuko —”

He looks so forlorn. 

“—  _ that’s love,  _ don’t you understand?”

Zuko looks at her so terribly confused and all she can do is press her lips to his and sigh and crawl into his chest. “Your father and your sister didn’t know how to love. They did it . . . wrong. That wasn’t love.  _ This,”  _ she taps his chest, “this is love.”

It takes a second but eventually he speaks out. Katara can’t see his face but she can picture his expression perfectly. “I think I might love you, then.”

“You  _ think  _ you  _ might? _ ” she says teasingly, but it throws him into a state of alarm. 

“No, uh, I love you —”

“It’s okay, Zuko. I love you too.”

His lips turn into a smile against her forehead.

Katara is positive that Zuko loves her now. 

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I'm in love with Zuko not understanding his feelings. Thanks for reading!


End file.
